SimpleReach Raises $9.0 Million Series A to Bring Measurability and ROI to Content Marketing

NEW YORK, July 22, 2014-- SimpleReach announced today that it closed a Series A financing round of $9.0 million. The round was led by MK Capital and included investments from Atlas Venture, Village Ventures and High Peaks Venture Partners. Kirk Wolfe from MK Capital will join the SimpleReach board.

Over the past year, SimpleReach has become the established leader in content measurement and distribution. Almost every top native advertising program, including The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post and The Atlantic, uses SimpleReach for internal reporting and to offer their clients a real-time view of sponsored content campaign performance. Nearly 100 marketers, mostly Fortune 500 companies, currently use SimpleReach to track their sponsored content performance across publisher sites and social media channels.

SimpleReach also works directly with companies such as Intel and Xerox to measure and distribute their owned content marketing programs. SimpleReach is the only solution that lets marketers optimize their paid distribution efforts across channels including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Outbrain, Nativo, StumbleUpon and TripleLift. On average, SimpleReach helps brands double traffic to and engagement with their branded content, while lowering the cost per engagement by up to 91%. “Before working with SimpleReach, it was like having a coach tell you everything you should do, after the game was over,” says Luke Kintigh, Global Media & Content Strategist at Intel. “Now we get insights in real time and it’s completely actionable.” As a result of the definitive success brands have seen from using SimpleReach, DigitasLBi and VivaKi have both partnered with SimpleReach for their content marketing and native advertising measurement and distribution initiatives.

With the new funding, SimpleReach will invest in the next generation of content measurement and distribution.

While there has been a massive expansion in the tools that aid the creation process for content marketers, proving ROI for content marketing efforts remains a key challenge facing the industry. For the first time, SimpleReach gives marketers of any size an end-to-end solution to identify the content that drives their business goals, and then programmatically amplify that content to the relevant target audience across channels.

Existing customers ranging from e-commerce sites to B2B software services have seen content become their most effective marketing channel, beyond display and SEM, by using SimpleReach. SimpleReach brings a new level of technological sophistication to content marketing, letting brands understand which content, accessed in which sequence, by which demographics, will drive the most efficient sign-ups and sales.

According to Edward Kim, CEO and Co-Founder of SimpleReach, the promise of content marketing is already established. “We have the data to prove content is a marketing channel for delivering strong ROI. With this new funding, we’ll make sure every content creator is empowered to see the same impact from their marketing endeavors.”

Since the beginning of 2014, SimpleReach has grown revenues by 800% and has increased media spend through its intelligent paid distribution platform by 3,000%. The company now tracks and processes more than 7 billion content interactions in real-time on a daily basis.

"We are thrilled to have the opportunity to invest in a foundational player within the fast-growing native advertising market," says Kirk Wolfe, General Partner at MK Capital. “SimpleReach is already the market leader for publishers, and this next phase will see accelerated growth in its business with agencies and brands."

ABOUT SIMPLEREACH:

SimpleReach is the standard in content measurement and distribution. As content has become the defining format for digital advertising, SimpleReach provides content creators with a platform to drive ROI at scale. With insight into which content drives conversions, SimpleReach programmatically amplifies the right content to targeted audiences across channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Outbrain, Nativo, StumbleUpon and TripleLift. Currently tracking and processing more than 7 billion content interactions in real-time daily, SimpleReach works with leading publishers such as The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post and The Atlantic, Fortune 500 companies including Intel and Xerox, as well as startups and mid-sized marketers. SimpleReach was founded in 2010 by Edward Kim, Eric Lubow and Russell Bradberry. http://simplereach.com

ABOUT MK CAPITAL:

MK Capital invests in early and growth stage companies in the software and digital media industries. The firm's partners, who average over fifteen years of venture capital experience, partner with entrepreneurial management teams to build leading companies in emerging markets. MK Capital manages over $250 million in capital and has deep domain expertise in the marketing, education, and cloud infrastructure industries. The firm is headquartered in Chicago and has offices in Los Angeles and Ann Arbor. http://www.mkcapital.com